


The Betty Crocker Academy For Young Witches and Wizards

by pikabot



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 16:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikabot/pseuds/pikabot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Lalonde enters the Betty Crocker Academy for Young Witches and Wizards, and gets more than she bargained for. The school has dark secrets, and her investigations send her on a colission course with Roxy, an older girl who bears a startling resemblance to Rose's mother...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Betty Crocker Academy For Young Witches and Wizards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grim_DarkPageOfVoidAndSpace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grim_DarkPageOfVoidAndSpace/gifts).



uranianUmbra [UU] began cheering tipsyGnostic [TG]  
UU: hello, dear!  
UU: is it good morning or good evening?  
UU: i hope i haven't woken yoU, i'm so terrible at these time differences. :U  
TG: naaah no worries its like the middle of the atfernoon  
TG: *afternoon  
TG: sides i alawys got tme for u  
TG: esp. today  
TG: u couldda woke me up at like three am and id still be a-fukcin-ok with it  
TG: *dman that was a lotta typos pretend those aint there  
TG: i mean after today i aint gonna be able to talk to u for like three months! :(  
UU: yes, I know.  
UU: this is exactly why I chose to message yoU despite the risk!  
UU: i woUld have absolUtely kicked myself if i had missed my chance to wish you a safe joUrney and a successful term ^u^  
TG: nawww callie u know id have fogriven u  
TG: *forgiven  
TG: srry bout all the typos theres a goodbye party goin on and we cracked open the good stuff!!!  
UU: not a problem at all, lovely!  
UU: i won't keep yoU from the festivities long, I swear.  
UU: i just wish we coUld have more time together...yoU're sUre there's no way to get internet access at your school?  
TG: ugh there really isnt  
TG: its way the fuck out in the sticks cell phone signal drops miles away from it :(  
TG: well theres computers in the library of course but theyr all creckercorp models  
TG: *crackercorp  
TG: **CROCKERCORP oh lol that last one was p. unfortunate  
TG: point is theyr locked down real good and even i aint sure i can get out all the creepy spynet stuff  
TG: i dont trust those creepy clownz not to use em to peek  
UU: perfectly Understandable.  
UU: i have a hard time believing yoUr headmistress employs those miscreants.  
UU: althoUgh to be fair i find it difficult to believe that yoUr school exists at all!  
TG: lol i know  
TG: you shoulda seen my face when that fuckin letter slid under the door all on its own  
TG: probly woulda come down the chimney liek kris kringle himself if we had one  
TG: and then its all welcome to the north amurrican hogwarts!  
TG: blew my fuckin mend  
TG: *mind  
UU: well i appreciate yoUr efforts to pass yoUr lessons onto me.  
UU: how ironic, that despite the obvioUs hogwarts parallels, there appears to be no comparable institUtion here in the Uk.  
UU: i do find magic ever so fascinating...  
TG: awww callie dont worry  
TG: this is my last year  
TG: so i can smuggle out every goddamn text book i can get my hands on for you <3  
TG: imma be roxy carapace, rogue of books  
TG: water they gonna do to me right?  
UU: that is a lovely thoUght! ^u^  
UU: jUst be careful not to endanger yoUrself for my sake.  
UU: i shoUld let yoU go now, but again, have a safe trip and a good term!  
UU: and...try to go easy on the alcohol, will yoU? yoU know jane worries.  
TG: alright i promise  
TG: seeya  
TG: no wiat  
TG: *wait  
TG: before u go  
TG: <3 <3 <3  
TG: ok there now u can go  
TG: seeya in december callie  
UU: ta!  
uranianUmbra [UU] ceased cheering tipsyGnostalgic [TG]

 

tentacleTherapist [TT] gardenGnostic [GG]  
TT: Good evening, Jade.  
GG: oh hi!!!!!  
GG: sorry cant talk long the plane is gonna be here any minute!  
GG: i did not sleep a wink last night i am too excited! :D  
TT: Perfectly understandable. I hope you and your grandfather have a pleasant flight.  
TT: My mother has, of course, spent hours fussing over my luggage and making sure she packed everything just right.  
TT: She simply will not stop gushing over how thrilled she is to introduce me to her coworkers. And what a wonderful witch she's sure I'll turn out to be. And how she should have purchased the suitcase adorned with twelve wizards instead of the simple triumvirate she decided on. Etc.  
TT: To be honest I only started pestering you in order to escape from it.  
TT: I swear I was only accepted at the Crocker Academy so that she could passive-aggressively mock me. The woman has deep-seated issues ranging far beyond her prodigious alcoholism.  
GG: maybe she's just happy for you?  
TT: Please. It's my mother. She's never just happy for me.  
GG: well if you were looking for something besides gushing i think you may have messaged the wrong person haha...  
GG: i still cannot get over how great it is that we all got in!  
GG: what are the odds right!?  
TT: Well, the fact that you are the school's first and only international student suggests to me that those odds may have been tipped ever so slightly by the fact that we are all in the care of members of the faculty.  
TT: Which I will remind you, is how we met in the first place.  
GG: oh hush and stop taking the magic out of everything!!! :p  
GG: you are going to totally the wrong place for that hehe  
GG: oh shoot that's the plane i can see it coming now  
GG: gotta go!  
TT: Farewell, Jade. I'll see you in a day or so.  
GG: seeya!! <3  
gardenGnostic [GG] tentacleTerapist [TT]

 

Rose supposed that her first step across the threshold into Platform 41/3 should have been a magical one, an experience of the veil of reality lifting from her eyes and revealing, at last, the magical workings that laid beneath. And perhaps it would have been, had the experience not been ruined by two factors: first, she was already engaged in wondering why it was referred to as the pointlessly confusing 'Platform 41/3' rather than the simpler, if still frustratingly nonexistent, 'Platform 13 and 2/3'. And second, the moment she passed into the station proper, pushing a heavily laden luggage cart before her, a clown horn went off next to her ear, startling her into spinning around at undignified speeds and leaving her luggage to drift for a few feet.

She turned to face her aggressor and found herself face to face with a dopy-looking clown. He was dressed from the neck down as a proper station attendant, but from the neck up he was a mass of white facepaint and wild, tangled hair. His eyes were shot through with blood.

"Tickets," he murmered, and Rose blinked at him in confusion for a moment before - horror of horrors - her mother came to her rescue.

"Here ya go ya dumb juggalo," she said, emerging through the portal behind her daughter and holding up two stiff slips of gaudily glittered-up paper. "Now you leave my baby alone. Clowns," she said, turning back to her daughter with a laugh as the tickets clown moved to startle the next student coming in behind her. "You'll get usedta 'em, I swear...I almost forget they're weird sometimes! Now hurry up, sweetie, yer holdin' up traffic!"

Rose caught up with her luggage cart again, and moved it forward again. "Mother, you don't need to baby me like that. I am perfectly capable of handling a ticket attendant on my own, jocular or otherwise."

Her mother shrugged. "I was just tryin' to help."

"You can help me by getting help. Are you honestly drinking before we're even on the train?"

"Drinkin'? Who's drankin'?"

Rose rolled her eyes. She'd seen her mother sneak two gulps from her flask during their time at the train station alone.

"Fine, fine, I promise ta lay off the sauce. Until gradin' season starts, at least, then all bets are off!" It was clear by the expression on the elder Lalonde's face that she thought this was a hysterical joke. Rose was less amused.

"Well, Mother, it appears this is where we part ways," Rose said, stopping her cart by the trainside and removing her luggage from it.

"You sure ya don't wanna ride it out up front with Mommy?" her mother asked, seeming almost hurt by her refusal. Rose didn't buy it; it was just another act of simulated affection, another volley in their neverending contest. "Staff car's got the best snacks!"

"No, thank you," Rose declined with effusive politeness. "I've already promised my friends I would meet them on the train. It would be rude of me to disappoint them."

"Alright, alright, I get it," her mother declared. "Just make sure ya get that scarf I made ya out of the bag before you stow'em, alright? It gets pretty cold on the trip there."

Rose doubted very much that it got that cold on a temperature-controlled magical train, but there would be no talking her mother down from this.

"Don't worry, I won't forget," she said. And then, hefting her luggage in both hands, she headed into the passenger cars to seek out her friends.

 

"Oh my gawd," Roxy slurred, pointing into the milling crowd of students outside their window. "Look at that one. He is super teeny but he is totally gonna grow up to be a hottie."

"Roxy, don't be a pig," Jane said. "He can't be older than thirteen, for crying out loud!"

"Yeah okay I wouldn't do him, like, now, but in four years? C'mon, girl, he's like a miniature Jake. Even has the same doofy glasses!"

"You are absolutely incorrigible," Jane grumbled, but then made the mistake of looking back out the window. "...maybe," she allowed.

"Ha!" Roxy crowed. "Even Janey with her Miss Uptight act can't deny it!"

"Yes, yes...could you keep your voice down, please? People are beginning to stare."

Roxy looked around and found that, indeed, people were conspicuously looking away in the way that suggested they had been staring in her direction only a moment before. It was as if they had never seen a couple of friends check out the new crop of first-years before.

"Aw, Janey, if you wanted a lil' privacy, you know all ya needed to do was ask," she said, reaching into her pocket, past all the junk she tended to collect there, and drawing her wand.

Jane was instantly alarmed. "Roxy, no, that won't be-"

But Roxy's hand was already in motion, and despite her tipsy state she drew back the wand - hickory wood, with Hello Kitty stickers on the handle - and swung it into the space between them. "Silentio Tenebris," she managed to slur out, and a dark cloud burst forth from the tip of the wand, spreading alarmingly until it encompassed their seats entirely. They were suddenly all alone in the world, seated inside an opaque, soundproof cloud.

"There we go!" Roxy said as she tucked her wand away again. "Ain't nobody gonna jeer at us now."

"No, instead they will just wonder what we're getting up to in here that would need such a thick privacy screen," Jane grumbled. Roxy considered the possibility, and then shrugged.

 

"Rose!"

Jade grabbed her arm from inside the compartment and pulled her inside. She was greeted with three smiling faces (well, two smiles and one stolidly Cool face) she had until now only seen in photographs.

"Hey, Rose!"

"'sup."

"Good morning," she said, stepping more completely inside and slinging her bag off of her shoulder. "It's a pleasure to meet you in the flesh at last."

"Rose, my flight was so long and boooooriiiiiiing," Jade whined, getting up from her seat and slumping into Rose in what was approximately half hug, half plea for sympathy. "There was nothing to do but listen to Grandpa tell more of his adventuring stories I've heard a dozen times! For twelve hours!"

"You poor thing," Rose said, patting her lightly on the back. "At least your ordeal has come to an end." Turning to address the cabin's male inhabitants, she asked: "I assume you both had better experiences?"

John nodded, but Dave only shrugged.

"It was a trip. Not much else to say about it except that not even my bro can harass me with puppets and keep both hands on the wheel at the same time. Which is good because he's been getting in as much filming as he can before the term starts and if I had to see one more gently protruding puppet proboscis I might have just done a graceful fucking pirouette right out the fucking sunroof and into oncoming traffic."

"Ah, yes, the eternal strife between you and the artificial phallus," Rose remarked while shrugging Jade off to make her way to her seat. "You really ought to accept that your fascination with these proto-penises is simply a projection of your fear of insufficiency and of your brother's controlling tendencies. Embrace the puppet dong. It is your destiny."

Strider may have rolled his eyes, but if he did it wasn't visible. "Your wannabe-Freud act sounds even lamer in person. No, only thing I want to know is what those two flighty broads in the other compartment are up to."

Rose turned to follow his gaze, and saw that the cabin opposite them was sealed off entirely by an impenetrable cloud of black smoke. A simple - if crude - spell of concealment, if Rose's estimation was worth anything.

Rose turned back towards him, smirking. "I'm sure that whatever two young ladies get up to behind their privacy screen is entirely their business, your overactive pubescent imagination notwithstanding."

He appeared to roll his eyes again, but this time she thought she noticed some tinting of the cheeks. It wasn't so easy to maintain the crackless facade in person as it was online.

Rose set her luggage on the seat while she opened up its corresponding storage space, but paused a moment from putting it away prematurely. At the last moment, she remembered that she had promised her mother she would wear the scarf she had made for her. With a groan she began undoing the clasps on her case, opening it back up to retrieve the article in question.

"I promised my mother I'd wear it," she explained to her friends, "and if she sees me coming off the train without it, she'll take it as an opportunity to get at me by pretending I have a cold and fawning over me for that reason. She's simply unbearable."  
The case swung open, and luckily enough the scarf (gaudy and pink) was sitting at the top of the pile of clothes. Well, not quite at the top: there was a folded note sitting atop it, attached with a paperclip. The pink ink, florid handwriting, and the frequency of alcohol-induced typos made it obvious who it was from.

She read it once, twice, and then a third time to be sure. But no matter how she looked at it she could derive no more meaning from it than she had the first time: which is to say, none.

"What is it?" Jade asked, poking her head around for a look. Rose closed the note and stuck it into her pocket.

"My mother seems to be trying the parenting technique of slipping affectionate notes into my possessions. Unfortunately, she seems to have forgotten to be sober enough for said note to be coherent."

That set off a laugh, and before long the four of them were talking with such enthusiasm that the mysterious note was all but forgotten.

 

The welcome feast had been a spectacle unlike anything she had ever seen. There had been chocolate cake, bundt cake, shortcake, cinnamon loaf...every manner of baked good one could imagine. The spread was complete...except, of course, for anything resembling actual food. The Betty Crocker Academy for Young Witches and Wizards, it seemed, was as devoted to the art of baking as its sponsor, namesake and current headmistress was. And the woman herself showed up, surprising the first-years by being both considerably younger and darker-skinned than promotional images had led them to believe. John nearly had to be restrained to prevent him from throwing himself across the room and onto the dreaded Batterwitch.

Her speech was memorable, to say that least. Rose had never been spoken to that way by a faculty member at any of the prestigious private schools her mother had had her registered in before now, and wasn't sure whether to be aghast or to find it refreshing. Either way, her favorite moment was certainly her conclusion: "Thanks for the mad monies and enjoy your cakes motherfuckers."

Advice they were all too happy to follow (except John, of course, who would have no part of any of it), but now, Rose was regretting not practicing moderation. As delicious as the cake had been, while she slept it had all coagulated into a terrible mass in her gut. It was a pitch black night and nobody could be found to direct her, but necessity was in this case the mother of navigation, and she managed to find her way there in time to answer a late-night call of nature.

She washed her hand with a stream of water from a dolphin-shaped faucet. Like so many other parts of the school, the entire bathroom was nautically themed. Shells, fish, shellfish, and all the rest covered nearly every surface. It wasn't quite what Rose had expected.

She was about to return to her room when suddenly she was reminded of her mother's note. It had been as succinct as it had been inscrutable:

GURL'S BATHROOM, THIRD FLOOR. LOOK UNDER THE SINK. PRESS THE TWO CLAMS TOGETHER (LOL). LOVE YA. MOM

Rose nearly disregarded it again, but something made her wonder. She reached under the sink with one hand, expecting not to find anything, sure she was just indulging a drunk woman's mad fantasies.

Her hand closed around a clam-shaped piece of ornamentation.

Suddenly intrigued, she dropped to her knees to inspect it manually. It was a simple piece of porcelain ornamentation, as intricately carved as all of its kind. Were it not on the sink's underside, all alone in its desolate land, it would be noteworthy in no way at all.

And yet, here she was, on her knees, carefully inspecting a bathroom fixture.

"Alright, Rose," she said aloud, "suppose we are taking your mother's drunken ramblings seriously. She said 'clams' in the plural. Therefore, there must be another clam-shaped object around here somewhere. Something, unlike this piece, which is movable..."  
She raised herself up slightly, casting her eye left and right, before finally finding it. It was a soap holder, sitting atop the very same sink she was getting familiar with the underside of. Now that she thought about it, its presence in the room was a bit odd, given that it was equipped with liquid soap dispensers at every other cleaning station.

With no small amount of trepidation, she picked up the clam shell, dumped the soap into the sink, and sank back down below the sink's edge. She hefted it in her hand, lined them up carefully, and finally pressed them together as firmly as she could.

There was no immediate effect. But when the rumbling sound began a moment later, when the wall slid out of the way, bathing the room in a cold, flickering green light, when organic contours and soft textures gave way to hard metal and darkness, she knew her life at the school could never again be the same.

 

Two months passed before Roxy Carapace became aware of Rose Lalonde's existence.

 

It started with a honk.

The party had been boistrous until that moment, but the sound cut through the teenaged crowd like a knife, silencing everybody. It could only mean one thing: one Crocker's jocular enforcers was nearby.

"Kill the music!" Roxy hissed, and her fellow students hurried to comply, shutting down the CD player she had snuck in and shoving it under the bed. Students either fled the room, or hid inside the closet or behind one of the pairs of bunkbeds. The clowns, terrifying though they could be, didn't actually care much for enforcing order on the student body. So long as there was nothing visible going on when they opened the door, they would usually leave well enough alone. Roxy shoved bottle after bottle beneath her own bed, and when it filled up, she took to shoving them under her covers. Finally, she joined them, tucking herself into her lumpy, unpleasantly hard bed just as the clown opened the door.

The clowns were an oddity in the daylight, but the darkness made their makeup into the stuff of nightmares. A pale face, eyes red and unfocused, leered in at them. A hand rose, holding their trademark horn, and gave it a slow, careful squeeze. Honk.

"You motherfucks keepin' nice and quiet in here?"

Roxy's response was to nod sleepily, as if there hadn't just been twenty underaged students in here a moment ago, partaking of her secret stash. The trick, in her experience, was to look as though she had been just woken up. To complete the illusion, she turned over in her bed, disregarding the bottle digging into her side.

The clown's eyes focused for the first time, and he stepped across the threshold, wicked grin revealing yellowed teeth. "What've ya got there, bitch?" he asked as he advanced on Roxy's bed. She looked down and saw her mistake: Moving had shifted the covers just enough for a bottle of cheap vodka to emerge from hiding, glimmering in the faint light.

The taste of fear snuck into Roxy's mouth. Was she really going to get busted by a stupid clown, over a bottle of cheap booze unfit to clean your drains with? She knew the school's booze policy by heart; she could get expelled over this. Stupid, stupid, stupid way to go. But the clown had seen it now, and there was no stopping him.

Suddenly, Roxy became aware of another person in the room. A girl, a few years younger than Roxy - maybe one of the first-years? Her hair was a bright flash of silver, like Roxy's, and she was dressed in a school uniform. How had either Roxy or the clown failed to see her? She was standing just off to the side of the clown's path, right out in plain sight. And yet, he took no notice of her. Nor had Roxy, until just now.

Still unsure whether she was truly there or not, Roxy opened her mouth to warn her, to urge her to move before the clown saw her and busted her too. But before the words could leave her mouth, the girl drew her wand - which crackled end-to-end with an ominously shaded light - and pointed it to the clown's neck. No incantation or word of power was required; he simply fell to the ground like his strings had been cut.

"What the hell?" Roxy cried out, and tossed the cover aside. Assaulting one of the clowns was a serious offense, Roxy could recall that even through her booze fogged mind. "You outta your tree, girl?"

The wand was pointed at her, now, and it froze her on the spot. She recognized the effect - the Obturatio Corpus, a common disabling curse - but she'd never seen it cast silently before. Nor as powerfully; it felt like her body was held in an unbreakable steel grip.

Roxy fought against it, but couldn't move an inch. She was trapped in place, helpless to do anything as the mysterious girl advanced on her. Fortunately, it appeared that she mostly wanted to take notes.

"Subject appears to be approximately eighteen years of age, give or take. This places her in the correct range for the project. The physical resemblance is uncanny: hair and eye color match exactly, similar height and build - allowing for variations in diet, of course - and vocal patterns in appropriate range."

She was dictating to a magical pen and paper, which was furiously scribbling down everything she said as she poked and examined Roxy. She bent in and sniffed the alcohol on her breath.

"Subject even appears to be susceptible to the same liver-ruining vices as her predecessor. This is at once affirming and extremely disappointing. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I have located Subject Zero, after a month of fruitless searching. A DNA test would doubtless prove it conclusively, but as I am not equipped for that, my intuition and careful examination will, as always, have to suffice. End dictation."

The pad of paper closed itself, and both flew into her bag, the same bag she had pulled her wand from. She snapped her fingers, and Roxy fell to the ground, released from the spell.

"The hell...was that?" Roxy asked, pulling herself to her feet and rubbing her throat. She was pleased to discover that her voice still worked.

"The clown will wake in ten minutes with no recollection of anything he saw here," the mysterious girl stated. "I suggest you find your booze and your friends a better hiding place by then."

Then she turned and walked back out through the door.

Roxy sat on the ground and stared after her for a moment, baffled, and her party guests emerged one at a time with the same expression on their faces.

"Does anybody want to tell me what the fuck just happened?" she slurred out.

 

The next day, Roxy was on the hunt for the mysterious first-year girl who had turned her dorm room upside down. She was the first cool thing to happen to this place since...well, since herself, if she could be so bold.

"I think I know who you mean, but I don't know her name," Jane said. "I've seen her around, though. You don't forget that hair color."

"I don't pay much attention to the first years," Dirk said unhelpfully.

"I don't know her, but I sure as shucks am sure we can track her down for you if we try," Jake said with double pistols and a wink.

Her normal network of contacts exhausted, she turned to a secondary mode of investigation: harassing first-years in the hall until somebody gives up the goods. She hit paydirt after only two investigations.

"You mean Rose fucking Lalonde?" a particularly angry little guy shouted at her. She had him by the back of the shirt, and wasn't letting go for another, no matter how loud he got or how intensely he glowered at her. "What in fuck do you want with her?"  
He tried to wriggle free, but Roxy wasn't going to let him go that easily. He clearly knew something, and she wanted to know it too. Using skills cultivated by living with a dozen brothers and sisters, Roxy twisted his arm up behind his back to keep him from moving.

"Dunno her name. Izzat her?"

"Blonde, short, totally shithive maggots? That sure fucking sounds like a description of Rose Lalonde."

Roxy considered questioning him on his unusual metaphor, but decided that there were more important things to discuss. "Well, c'mon, shouty, gimme the good dirt on her!"

The younger student answered through gritted teeth. "She's the kid of the Concealments professor. She fussed all over her the first day. Fucking disgusting. Then a week later she goes totally off the fucking grid! Barely fucking goes to class, just shows up at random parts of the school and spooks the shit out of everyone around her. Even her friends think she's gone nuts! Now will you let go of my fucking arm, or am I going to have to twist until you fucking break it? Because I will!"

Roxy released him - too small to not throw back, she joked to herself - and he scampered into the crowd, casting a glare back at her over her aching shoulder.

Now Roxy had a name, as well as a description, but it sounded like this girl would be tough to get her hands on. If she was really Professor Lalonde's daughter, she probably knew some grade-A concealment spells. That stuff tended to run in the family. That probably explained why the clown had never even saw her coming.

"But ain't nobody better'n me at Concealments," Roxy said out loud, talking to herself. She'd aced Concealments every year. Professor's kid or not, no first-year punk was getting one over her.

 

Rose, wrapped in a special Concealment, slipped un-noticed through the halls of the Crocker Academy. The spell was complex, and had to be cast again each day, but its effects were worth the trouble: instead of actually concealing her from sight, which would itself be as noticable as a neon sign for those looking for invisibility spells, it simply made her imperceptible. She wouldn't stand out in any way, so long as there was something else which could catch their eye instead. It limited her movement to crowded periods between classes, but it meant she had the run of the school. She could go anywhere, so long as she was careful not to be caught alone.

She broke from the crowd, heading off towards a storage closet. The lock gave way before her wand easily, clicking open. She slipped inside unseen.

The closet was just that - a closet. A stack of cleaning supplies against the wall, a janitor's cart against the other, spare tables and chairs...nothing noteworthy. Just like a dozen other similar rooms, scattered throughout the school's corridors.  
But this was the one she was looking for. She was certain of it.

She raised her wand, preparing for a downward swing that would take out the opposite wall, when a hand dropped on her shoulder. She spun about, jerking away from the hand, mind whirling with a dozen thoughts and questions. How had they found her? How many were there? Why hadn't they honked? She raised her wand to dispatch the intruder...and then froze at the sight of a shock of familiar silver hair.

"Hey, hun," Roxy slurred, waving at her as if she didn't have a wand in her face. "Y'know, you're pretty hard to find!"

"It should have been impossible," Rose responded, keeping her wand between them. "How did you break my imperceptibility spell?" The question was born partially of genuine curiosity, and partially of a need to buy herself some time to figure out her next move.

"I didn't! I figured that one out in second year. The spell needs to output to both eyes to work, right? That's how it papers over you, by movin' people in front of you in their three-dee field of vision. So when I figured you were using it, I just closed one eye. Wonk wonk," she added, demonstrating.

An ice chill went down Rose's back. "I...I had no idea."

"Yeah, it's a nifty spell, but I am the concealments mastah. Don't mess with me, sweetheart."

Rose flinched at that last word. She hated it coming from her mother, but here, coming from her twisted image, it was all the worse, especially given how little Roxy understood. She didn't mean anything by it, but it twisted her heart nonetheless.

"You should leave," Rose said. "This is my responsibility, and mine alone. There is no need for you to get caught up in it."

"I ain't going nowhere until I know what your freaky deal is," Roxy insisted. "So why don't you put the wand down and quit pretendin' you're gonna use it on me?"

Rose hesitated for a moment, and then lowered her wand. "Very well. If you must, I will allow you to come with me."

"That's a good girl," Roxy said, reaching out and ruffling the other girl's hair. "God damn you first-years are adorable. Take yourself so dang seriously!"

"Mother!" Rose protested. The familiar stink of vodka washed over her nose, and she wrinkled it up automatically. "Are you already drunk at ten in the morning?"

"Uh. I ain't your mom, kiddo. That's like...not even possible."

Rose froze up again. She hadn't even realized she had said that. "My apologies," she mumbled as she turned away. "Old habits."

She turned back towards the wall, and raised her arm once again. Beneath her breath she murmured incantations in ancient tongues, dark words she had uncovered in her private researches. The length of her wand flared with a dark light, from tip to tip, and she harnessed this energy into a single point of intense power.

"That don't look good," Roxy noted, watching from over her shoulder.

Ignoring her, Rose's arm swung forward like a pendulum, and the dark light shot forward. It reached the wall and spread across it, dissolving protective charms and bricks alike. There was a flare of octarine as the last of the spell vanished, consumed by Rose's dark arts.

"Damn, gurl, where'd you learn to do that?"

"I have always had a fascination with the...darker side of the magical arts," Rose admitted as she stepped forward into the dark space where the wall once stood. Behind it, a dark corridor stretched off into the distance, descending down into the very bowels of the castle. "My current mission simply gives me an opportunity to exercise them."

"Y'know that's bad for your soul, right?" Roxy said, stepping behind her and peering down into the darkness. "Now what the heck's back here that's got you breakin' down random-ass walls in storage rooms?"

"You'll see soon enough," Rose said, beginning her descent. "Follow me."

"Alright, but if a bat poops on me I'm blamin' you," Roxy commented.

The path was long, but straight. It did not curve or twist, but simply went downwards forever. The walls were carved smoothly from the stone the school was built on, and utterly featureless. It seemed to go on forever, and every time Rose swore that they must be approaching the end, the passage refused, and simply continued on forever instead. Eventually the dim light from the entrance was too faint to see anything by, and their path was lit only by a light summoned to the tip of both of their wands.

"This is goin' on forever!" Roxy complained behind her. "We almost there yet?"

"We must be," Rose responded. "Doing alright back there?"

"Oh yeah, yeah, fine. Just a liiiiitle creeped out by the endless black tunnel o' doom sittin' right in the middle of my school. You gonna tell me what's goin' on back here?"

"I suppose I may as well. I didn't expect this tunnel to go on as long as it has. Roxy, I have seen your file. You are adopted, correct?"

"Yeah, so? What's that got to do with anythin'?"

"Everything. Tell me, what do you know about your birth parents?"

"Nuttin'. I was just handed off to some goons at a fire station. What the hell does this have to do with this creepy-ass tunnel?"

"Again: everything. If my suspicions are correct, your genetic mother is Professor Lalonde. Who is, I should remind you, also my mother. And your birthplace is at the end of this tunnel."

"What."

Roxy sped up and grabbed Rose by the shoulder, yanking her sideways. "The fuck do you mean by that? What kinda random-ass thing is that to say?"

Rose pulled her robe out of Roxy's hand. "Come with me and you'll see." Then she set off down the tunnel again, as if the brief altercation had never happened.

"This school has secrets," Rose continued. "My mother put me on the track of some of them, and I've since spent the rest of my time here uncovering as much as I can. This chamber is, I think, at the heart of it. The absolute proof I need."

"To prove what, 'zactly?"

"That this is no school. Ah, here we go."

The tunnel finally opened up into a vast chamber. The walls and much of the floor were covered in tanks of fluid, bubbles running from one end to the other through them. The floor was smoothly carved stone, and the ceiling was sufficiently tall that the light from their wands could not reach it. The tanks each gave off an otherworldly glow, casting the whole room in a pale green light.

"What the hell is all this?" Roxy asked, stepping up to the nearest tank and peering inside. At first it appeared to be empty, but a closer inspection revealed that to not be the case; there was a tiny lump of organic matter at the center of the tank, suspended by an unseen force. Squinting at it, Roxy suddenly realized that it was a fetal human.

"Clones," Rose explained. "This whole school is a front for a clone farm."

 

Headmistress Betty Crocker peered down into the dark tunnel. She'd known as soon as Rose had blown down the wall. She wasn't stupid, all the school's secret doors were wired to alert her to any breach. Rose had taken care of the security spells, but she'd neglected to check for a simple wire system.

"What a dumb motherfucker," she said, looking down the tunnel. "Now I gotta walk all the way down there and clean up."

Not that killing either of them would be much trouble, but the loss of two test subjects would suck. Not to mention having to walk all the way down and then all the way back.

"The boss ain't gonna be happy about this."

She thought about that for a moment more.

"Eh, fuck him."

She stepped into the tunnel...and then something warned her to throw herself backwards. She hit the deck, and a killing spell sailed through the air where she had been a moment before.

She whirled around, long, curly hair whipping about behind her. The room was empty.

"Come the fuck out, you dumb bitch!" she shouted. "I know you're in here!"

There was a shimmering in the air, and then a woman stepped out from behind her concealment spell. A shock of silver hair, pink eyes flashing in the dark. A full martini glass in her hand.

"Knew it was just a matter of time before you stabbed me in the gills," Crocker said through gritted teeth. "I told the boss, but he wouldn't listen."

"I'll put up with a lot in the name of science," Professor Lalonde said cooly, taking a sip from the martini. She held a white wand in the other hand, pointed at her former employer. "But I ain't gonna let you lay a finger on either of those gurls."

"Fine by me," Crocker responded. She pulled her trademark red spoon from her pocket and twisted the handle. It shifted form into a wicked-looking fork. "I've been looking forward to this for a while. Time to drown, bitch!"

 

"A clone farm? Seriously?"

"You were part of the first generation of clones," Rose explained. "Direct clones of members of the scientific team behind the project. They were sent off to live in communities around the United States, to see how you would turn out away from a controlled environment." She took out her cellphone and began taking pictures of the clone tanks.

"So what does that make you?" Roxy asked, moving along the line of tanks. The clones in these were older, more recognizably human.

"I'm part of the second generation. Instead of being directly cloned from them, we were created using new technology. Our genetic information was taken from two members of the team, and fused together. We were raised by one of our genetic parents. I don't know why."

"So, wait, hang on. Does that mean that I'm..."

"My mother, yes. Or a clone of her, at any rate."

"Wow," Roxy said. She stared into one of the tanks, blinking slowly. Her whole world felt unmoored. She would have never believed it, but...here they were. Here was the clone tank. Hell, maybe the very tank she was made in. "This is fuckin' heavy," was all she could think to say.

"It can be a bit of an adjustment. Take your time. I still need more photos."

Roxy slid down to the ground. "Yeah, I mean...it's not like a huge difference but it kinda is? Christ of a fuckin' pogo stick, I need a drink."

Rose, apparently satisfied, slid the phone shut. "Well, if it's any consolation, I intend to take this place down. As soon as I can get this phone a cell signal I can send this pictures all over the internet. I may never know why they wanted to clone themselves, but I can live with the mystery."

A third voice cut through the quiet atmosphere. "Here, why don't I tell you two stupid motherfuckers exactly what I wanted?

Both of them turned to face the tunnel's exit, across the room. And standing there, illuminated by the play of tank lights across her dark skin, was their headmistress. The Batterwitch herself. Betty Crocker.

"I did it for the mad cash, obviously. Lord English is paying me a pretty penny for his army of clones. You chumps were just the first phase, test out the tech. We're gonna kick it into mass production soon."

Rose dropped her phone into her pocket and slowly extended her wand. Roxy followed her example, pulling herself up from the ground.

"So, that's all it is? Money? My whole life is just one big money-making scheme for you?" Rose's voice was cold, her grip on her wand tightening.

The headmistress laughed. Her hair was moving, as though alive, writing and sliding around behind her. It was so voluminous that it blocked access to the tunnel altogether. "Yep! That pretty much covers it. I own your ass, and I intend to turn a profit on it. Of course," she continued, "not everyone had the same reasons. Lalonde was just in it for the science. She was a reel purist, too. Wasn't tuna happy when I farmed you kids out. But it ain't like her opinions matter much anymore."

"Oh, really?" Rose asked. "And why is that?"

The smile on Crocker's face was inhuman. "Well, it might have something to do with her being one dead motherfucker."

Her hair moved - it was definitely moving now, there was no doubt about it - and a woman in a white lab coat emerged, held aloft by a tentacle of hair wrapped around her throat. Her chest was perforated in three places, a trail of red leading down across her chest.

"Mother!"

"Clone mom!"

The tentacle whipped out and tossed the woman forward. She struck the stone floor with a sickening thump and didn't move.

Rose's teeth ground together. Her eyes fixed on Crocker's face with an intesity sufficient to melt stone. Her ears were pounding, full of the ancient tongues.

"Aw yeah, that's the look I wanna sea," Crocker said, cackling. "Come at me, bros! Show me a good time!"

A primal scream rent forth from Rose's throat, and a corona of black fire burst into being around her. Chanting in incomprehensible tongues, she thrust her wand forward and sent a jet of fire forward in a zigzagging line.

Crocker laughed. Before the fire was anywhere near her, her spoon was back in her hand - returned to its basic form with another twist of the handle. She caught the fire in the spoon's concave surface, and deflected it, cutting a line across an entire row of cloning tanks.

Rose shot forward, wand flashing again, and the batterwitch moved to intercept. She was fast, fast enough to cover the space between them in a matter of seconds, and she deflected the second shot with a blow to the wrist. Rose dropped her wand, and it went skittering off into the darkness.

Rose tried to reach forward and engage hand-to-hand, but Crocker's hair wound around her. It was tough as steel and just as strong, and before she could touch her headmistress, she was hauled backwards, hands bound to her sides.  
"Gotcha," Crocker cackled. "Now, where's your little buddy..."

Roxy had vanished completely while Rose had her attention. Concealments. Crocker rolled her eyes. The easiest thing in the world to get around, when you had her hair.

She cast out her hair like a net, forming a web which spread throughout the entire room. Too tightly woven to pass through, but too large to avoid.

"I'm going to just keep trawling this room until I find you!" she shouted. "You may as well just come out!"

Still nothing. The web kept spreading, and her face became more and more troubled as it did...until it ran between every single cloning tank, across every section of floor...and still nothing. She and Rose were all alone in the room.

"Where the fuck are you?" she demanded, frustrated, and the answer came in the form of a spoken incantation:

"Morietur in Ignis!"

A ring of fire descended from above, engulfing Crocker's outstretched hair. She screamed and tried to pull it back, but the rancorous odor of burning hair was already filling the air; so much of it was already ablaze. Eyes full of hate, she looked at the fire's source...and there was Roxy, crouching on top of one of the clone tanks, safely out of reach of the hair net.

"Ha!" she shouted down. "How d'ya like them apples!"

Gloating was shortlived, however. Eyes full of fury, Betty leaped through the air, leaving Rose behind. Her fist lashed out, and Roxy couldn't hope to move fast enough to catch it. She fell down all the way to the ground, bleeding from a broken nose.

Crocker landed between them, eyes flashing from one to the other. "You, I'm gonna kill slow," she said, directing the greater part of her vexation at Roxy. "Nobody fucks with my hair."

Then, suddenly, a hand wrapped around her leg. She looked down, face twisted in surprise. It was Lalonde - the old Lalonde, the one she'd left for dead on the floor.

"What, are you serious?" she asked, rolling her eyes. "And you're going to do what, exactly?"

The elder Lalonde reached into her coat pocket, and Crocker's eyes widened as she pulled out - a fucking grenade, of all things! She pulled the pin out with her teeth.

"Get that fucking thing away from me!" she shouted, kicking and trying to get away, but Lalonde found a last reserve of strength to hold on, clinging to Crocker's leg like an eel. At the last moment, she looked out at her daughters, first in one direction, and then the other.

"I love you both," she said. And then the grenade went off, leaving them alone in the dark with nothing but their ringing ears and each other for company.

 

tipsyGnostic [TG] began pestering uranianUmbra [UU]  
TG: hey callie im home again  
TG: u there?  
TG: guess not  
TG: oh well i guess u will just get this when u get back  
TG: so uh the school year was kinda a bust  
TG: sorry i didnt get u any text books i did my best but the whole thing is on lockdown for ~investigation~  
TG: ugh wow i feel like shit is this what sobriety feels liek  
TG: i dont like it  
TG: anyway i guess ill talk to you later  
UU: oh!  
UU: hello!  
UU: i did not expect you home so soon!  
UU: and my brother was harassing me so i was away from the computer  
UU: did something go wrong?  
TG: yeah u could say that  
TG: well first i met my sister slash daughter and that was pretty weird  
TG: and then whoops turns out im a clone of her mom!  
TG: who was like my favorite professor!  
TG: and then the headmistress goes nuts and they both die  
TG: and then johnny government comes in 2 try and cover everything up!  
TG: it was all pretty fucked  
UU: what!?  
UU: yoU can't be serioUs aboUt all that, can yoU?  
UU: roxy, are you pUlling my leg?  
TG: nope its the gods honest  
TG: christ i need a drink  
TG: also to have my life back the way it was a week ago that would be swell  
TG: but mainly a drink  
UU: roxy i am not sUre what to say!  
UU: are yoU okay? do yoU need help?  
UU: i'm not sUre what I could do from over here but the full scope of my resoUrces are at yoUr disposal!  
TG: aw thats sweet callie  
TG: love ya  
TG: but na i should be fine after a good round of alcoholic therapy  
TG: which is starting...now  
TG: oh god wonderulf booze  
TG: ok gotta go i will ttyl i promise  
UU: take yoUr time, dear!  
UU: i will want the full story later, thoUgh.  
tipsyGnostic [TG] ceased pestering uranianUmbra [UU]

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! I ditched the Jane part of the prompt because I couldn't see any way to fit it in, and it's a bit tangential.
> 
> All spell names were created by sticking English phrases (like, say, "Die in the fire") into Google Translate English -> Latin. I do not speak Latin, and I care not one jot that the names are totally incorrect Latin.


End file.
